The Aquarist of the Year

The MASNA Award and Aquarist of the Year Award

Starting in 2017, MASNA recognizes two individuals for their work in the marine aquarium hobby that positively contributes to the ongoing sustainability of the hobby and future marine environments through the MASNA Award and the Aquarist of the Year Award.

Together with MASNA, previous winners of the MASNA Award and Aquarist of the Year award evaluate a pool of MASNA membership nominated individuals to decide who has given the most to the hobby and industry over their lifetime and past year, respectively.

The MASNA Award, is historically what was called the Aquarist of the Year Award. The MASNA Award is to recognize those individuals who have contributed a lifetime of achievement to the marine aquarium industry, not only recently, but in the past.

The second award, now named Aquarist of the Year Award, is to recognize those individuals who have made a more recent achievement to the marine aquarium industry.

The Past Recipients

The 2018 Aquarist of the Year

MASNA is proud to announce Jamie Craggs as the 2018 Aquarist of the Year.

Jamie Craggs is currently the aquarium curator at the Horniman Museum & Gardens, London, UK. In addition, he is a science associate at the Natural History Museum, London and in 2016 was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, the world’s oldest active biological society.

His main research interest is the reproductive biology of reef-building corals and in 2012 he founded PROJECT CORAL, a multi-year research project focused on developing techniques to predictably induce broadcast coral spawning events in closed system aquariums. The initial goal was to understand what triggers corals to spawn in the wild and emulate that in captivity. Now moving on, techniques are being used to support climate change research and reef restoration efforts. To date, gamete (egg and sperm) development has been induced in 18 Acropora species, with planned spawns leading to in-vitro fertilization capacity and the production of genetically diverse coral in captivity.

Last year a partnership between the Horniman and the Center for Conservation (CFC) at Florida Aquarium commenced to develop land-based coral spawning to support reef restoration of the critically endangered species Acropora cervicornis. Jamie is very proud to see the techniques he has developed in London being applied to species conservation work and feels the planned developments at CFC will be game changing in how we approach coral reef restoration in the future. Linked to this partnership over the past year he has been working on the concept of co-culturing, rearing sea urchin juveniles alongside newly settled coral spat and investigating micro herbivory to increase coral survival to support upscaling efforts for restoration. Spawning corals in aquariums have enormous potential for the aquarium industry.

Sharing this knowledge with the wider community remains central to Jamie’s ethos. He regularly speaks at conferences and shares his findings of captive coral spawning through magazine articles and on social media. His recent scientific publications on system design and methods to induce Acropora to spawn in aquariums and techniques of transporting gravid colonies to start captive breeding programs have been published in open source journals, ensuring free access to all. Alongside his other roles, Jamie is reading for a Ph.D. at the University of Derby focusing on the topic of Project Coral.

The 2017 Aquarist of the Year

MASNA is proud to announce Karen Brittain as the 2017 Aquarist of the Year.

Karen Brittain is a marine ornamental fish breeder and having been born and raised in Hawaii, the ocean and its inhabitants have always been a part of her life. Her childhood was spent at the beach exploring tide pools, snorkeling and catching critters to keep in her marine aquarium. Her saltwater interests continued to grow through high school and she graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1983 with a degree in Marine Studies. Soon after, she found her passion in the captive breeding of reef fish.

Over the last thirty years she has been employed at the Waikiki Aquarium and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology working towards the captive breeding and rearing of marine fish and invertebrates, both for food and as ornamental species. During these years she spent her free time pursuing the captive breeding of her favorite reef fishes and in 1997 she started Reef Friendly Fishes, a small scale marine ornamental fish hatchery operating out of her garage. Initially she focused on clownfish and ornamental shrimp, which provided the income needed to expand to other species.

In 2014 Karen found herself unemployed as funding ended for her full time job. Thankfully she still had her small garage hatchery and a lot more time to spend unraveling the mysteries of larval fish rearing. As a result she is currently self employed and working 24/7 at her ultimate dream job of rearing marine ornamentals.

Karen continues to encourage marine aquarium hobbyists to pursue the captive breeding of our aquarium pets. She is focusing on more challenging species and over the last few years has successfully raised Genicanthus watanabei, Genicanthus personatus, Paracentropyge venusta, Centropyge acanthops, Apolemichthys arcuatus, Odontanthias fuscipinnis and Liopropoma carmabi. She continues to share her experiences and knowledge in the hopes that the breeding of aquarium inhabitants will continue to progress, resulting in a constant flow of captive bred species to our hobby/industry.

How to Nominate

MASNA members can post their nominations below for the 2019 MASNA Award & MASNA Aquarist of the Year. Nominations will be compiled and the winner will be selected by a panel of previous MASNA Award & Aquarist of the Year recipients. MASNA members may nominate up to three individuals for both awards.

The voting process will be open May 13th through May 31st, 2019. Please complete the entire form for each submission. Incomplete forms will not be accepted.